How managers can promote a culture of innovation in tech

By Agnieszka Ceitil – Business Unit Head. Innovation is a relatively broad concept in business, the thought of which often creates anxiety and trepidation in leadership. Creating a culture of innovation is directly linked to creativity and it feels like an impossible task to initiate creativity in what are sometimes very structured and logic-centric environments in the IT industry.

As with most goals, it is not insurmountable if broken down into smaller, more manageable steps.

1. Foster a culture of innovation

Firstly, and probably the most difficult to get right, is the culture. It has to be one of trust and openness with a solid dose of “nonjudgement”.
This allows people the confidence to be innovative, but more importantly to feel safe to voice   ideas and feel like they will get their ideas heard.

Nobody wants to voice an idea just to be shot down.

2. Offer transparency at an organisational level

On the other hand, ideas also have to make sense for the organisation in order to be of any use. The only way to achieve this is for people to understand the broader organisation goals, strategy and challenges. This requires a fair amount of transparency about the functioning of the organisation, including the “Why” we do things, not just about the “What” we do.

Employees need to feel a sense of ownership and they cannot do this if they do not understand the context of what the organisation is trying to achieve and what the roadblocks may be. Make everyone feel part of the solution. Communication and transparency is key even when it feels uncomfortable.

3. Create opportunities for innovation

Once these things are in place, organisations need to create opportunities for innovation. These could take the form of things like hackathons or just giving people time outside of their daily work to get involved in communities for innovation. Provide topics of interest and goals for these communities to ensure focused effort (for example “how to make use of AI in the organisation”). Having a clear goal for these communities improves the odds of getting valuable innovation from these initiatives.

Another idea is to incorporate innovative thinking and ideas to ongoing workday activities which happen regardless of the need for innovation. An example of this would be to incorporate an innovation stream into training where staff members need to apply what they learnt in their training by presenting an innovative idea back to the business.

4. Inspiration and external input is important

Its also very useful to consistently provide inspiration for people. The technology world is constantly evolving and nobody can keep up if they are not exposed to outside ideas. An example of this would take the form of encouraging people to attend industry workshops or external conferences. The idea is for people to get a boost of external ideas and energy to prompt creative thinking and to generate ideas that can be built upon for their own company.

Innovation and creativity does not happen in a vacuum.

We have all experienced it when colleagues come back from external events overflowing with enthusiasm, energy and new ideas. Tap into this energy!

5. Implementation is key

On the flipside, its always worth mentioning and cautioning against one of the most common failures of innovation efforts. This happens when ideas are submitted into a proverbial ‘black hole’. If there is no follow through with implementation or even feedback about ideas, people will very quickly give up and innovation will stagnate.

Managers should be empowered to implement ideas or alternatively should give feedback about ideas, even if its just to say “not right now” or provide input on how the idea needs to be refined.

A culture of innovation is yours for the making

As leaders, we need to be open to try new things, even if they have to be adjusted along the way once real-life scenarios play out, or even if they flat out fail.  There is no learning or growth without some failure.